Piero Delogu was also convicted by the Supreme Court of Cassation, found responsible for manslaughter for the death of Paride Meloni, who died on 8 November 2017 in the Delogu Cellars , a few kilometres from Alghero.
The man, a skilled agricultural worker, had gotten his head stuck in the hatch while performing maintenance on a wine vat, suffocating from fermentation gases from the must . The 46-year-old endured two minutes of agony, as shown in a video recorded at his workplace on the day of the tragedy.
In the first instance, Delogu, the owner of the business, was acquitted "because the act did not constitute a crime." However, prosecutor Angelo Beccu appealed the ruling to the Court of Appeal, arguing for two factors as evidence of the charges. The first related to the so-called "work at height," which, according to the magistrate, needed to be reformulated compared to the first trial. Indeed, Beccu stated, such work is considered to be anything occurring more than two meters above a stable surface, specifying that the latter is the ground below and not the worker's floor. This was precisely the case with Meloni.
The second factor is connected to the requirements of the Risk Assessment Document, which specifies that, in these cases, to prevent falls from a height, there should always be an active connection with people present outside who can intervene promptly in the event of an emergency . The DVR therefore states that "work at height cannot be performed alone."
In the second instance, the panel noted that the lack of precautions, namely the presence of another person at the workplace, contributed to Meloni's death. As stated at the outset, he died after at least two minutes of trying to free himself from the trap in the hatch. This time was considered adequate for a worker to rescue him, had he been present .
The Court had imposed a one-year suspended prison sentence and left the conviction unmentioned, also awarding compensation to the civil parties represented by attorney Maria Giovanna Marras. On November 4, the Supreme Court rejected the appeal of the defendant's defense, represented by attorneys Pantaleo Mercurio and Nicola Lucchi, upholding the decision of the Court of Appeal.
